Sunday, May 29, 2016

The Singularity

Singularity is a future period during which the pace of
technological change

will be so rapid, its impact so deep, that human life will
be irreversibly transformed. ― Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity is Near

Originator

Vernor Vinge is a retired San Diego State University
mathematics professor, computer scientist and science fiction author who I met
locally. In his 1993 essay The Coming
Technological Singularity he predicted that the creation of superhuman
artificial intelligence would mark the point beyond which no current models of
reality are sufficient to predict what will happen. (1) He believes
that shortly after the Singularity arrives the human era will be ended.

Vernor Vinge was the first to coin the phrase,
“Technological Singularity” to describe a future point at which technology
creates intelligences beyond human comprehension. The term is now in wide use
among futurists. Some 20 years later, he remains firm on his views about the collapse
of civilization after the Singularity.In
my opinion, this is more than a little tinged with his futuristic science
fiction imagination. (2)

Principal Supporter

Ray Kurzweil’s is a distinguished MIT graduate, a
prizewinning author and scientist who received the National Medal of Technology&
Innovation in 1999. He has been inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame, has
received 20 honorary doctorates, has been awarded honors from three U.S.
presidents, and has authored 7 books (5 of them national bestsellers).

About 25 years ago, Ray Kurzweil changed his job description
to "societal visionary". He became Director of Engineering of Google
in 2012, saying that his sole job is to make computers as smart as humans, with
natural language understanding.

Ray Kurzweil published
two books that got me hooked on his futuristic thinking: The Age of Intelligent Machines (Oct. 1990); and The Age of Spiritual Machines: When
Computers Exceed Human Intelligence. (Jan. 2000)

Ray Kurzweil’s 670-page tome, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology was
published in 2011. (3) The book was a New York
Times bestseller and has been #1 on Amazon in both science and
philosophy. It portrays what
life will be like after the Singularity – a human-machine civilization when
human experiences shift from real to virtual reality. I got an advance copy at
a conference where Ray Kurzweil was the keynote speaker, and have been carrying
an e-copy around on my Kindle since.

Approaching
Singularity

Ray Kurzweil offers a framework for envisioning the
twenty-first century – an age in which the marriage of human sensitivity and
artificial intelligence fundamentally alters and improves the way we live.
Kurzweil's prophetic blueprint for the future takes us through the advances
that inexorably result in computers exceeding the memory capacity and
computational ability of the human brain by the year 2020 (with human-level
capabilities not far behind); in relationships with automated personalities who
will be our teachers, companions, and lovers; and in information fed straight
into our brains along direct neural pathways. (4)

Here's what Ray Kurzweil expects:

"Within
just a few decades, life as we know it will be completely different.
Non-biological intelligence will match the range and subtlety of human
intelligence. It will then speed past it because of the continuing acceleration
of information-based technologies, with the ability of machines to share their
knowledge instantly. By 2045, we'll get to a point where technical progress
will be so fast that un-enhanced human intelligence won't keep pace."

Ray Kurzweil’s movies, Singularity
and Transcendent Man are different
versions of the same idea. Ray discusses a hypothetical future paradise in
which humans will become "more creative and more loving" by adding
artificial intelligence to their brains.

Ray Kurzweil turned 68 this year (February 2016) and expects
to live forever, with his intelligence downloaded to a machine. In the
meantime, he is reprogramming his metabolism for extreme longevity by taking
about 200 pills a day. He says, "I think I'll make it through to when I
can at least back myself up."

Time Cover Story

In Feb 2011 the cover of
TIME magazine featured the headline: "2045
- The Year Man Becomes Immortal". The cover-story shows Ray Kurzweil
in front of a theater showing his movie, and the article headlines the
definition of Singularity: "The moment when technological change becomes
so rapid and profound, it represents a rupture in the fabric of human
history". (5)(6)

TIME's coverage of Ray Kurzweil came just a few days after USA Today interviewed him about the
Jeopardy match between IBM's supercomputer Watson, which won against two of the
game's human champions. The match was reminiscent of the historic chess win by
IBM's Deep Blue against world chess-champion Garry Kasporov in 1997. Years
before it happened, Kurzweil foretold that computers would defeat humans in
chess

Possibilities

Will there be a Singularity? On one hand, it could potentially
solve most human problems, even mortality. Unshackled by human limitations,
advanced life could eventually do amazing things beyond our abilities. On the
other hand, it could destroy life, as we know it.

The Singularity could be the best or worst thing ever to
happen to humanity. Yet, largely, it is shrugged off. A common argument is that
there is no scientific proof that any disaster scenarios will occur.On the optimistic side, digital technologies
will diagnose diseases more accurately than doctors can, apply enormous data
sets to transform retailing, and accomplish many tasks once considered uniquely
human.

Some people think that the Singularity seems far-fetched. But, when I travel halfway across
the globe with ivory-tower objectivity at 40,000 feet, I keep imagining how the
world continues to accelerate through technology. I get a strange feeling that
indeed some significant transition is inevitable. It won't be a smooth shift –
more like an inflection point, a fairly rapid switch.

Transhuman

The interconnected, planet-wide
web is already more complex than a human brain and has surpassed the
20-petahertz threshold for potential intelligence. In 10 years, it will be a
thousand times more powerful. (7) So, will super intelligence emerge
on the Web? And, if it does, will it be manageable? Or, will it take charge and
manage? Already, some are predicting transhuman
and posthuman intelligence. Can
anyone say with certainty that this cannot or will not happen?

At this stage, perhaps we can only just muse about these
ideas. Before you shrug them off or completely dismiss them, please read Ray
Kurweil's book – or maybe read the first couple of chapters on Amazon.com.

Whimsical

In
any case, you might enjoy this song, a humorous Singularitarian version of Gilbert & Sullivan's I Am The Very Model of a Modern Major
General from the opera, The Pirates
of Penzance.

Here's a sample of the lyrics. Below, you’ll find a link to a
YouTube video version: (8)

I was reminded of my attraction to and fascination with the
concept of the Singularity when the financial guru John Mauldin, who writes
remarkably well, brought it up recently in his Thoughts from the Frontline newsletter. (9)

John writes: The black hole is the point of no return – the point at which the gravitational pull
becomes so great that nothing can escape; conventional models no longer work.

John Mauldin is correct to draw a parallel between the
technological singularity and the black
hole that is being approached with the current global economic situation.
An economic bubble of any type, but especially a debt bubble, can be thought of
as an emergent black hole. When the bubble gets too big and then collapses in
upon itself, it creates its own black hole with all traditional economic
modeling breaks down.

Any economic theory that does not attempt to transcend the
event horizon associated with excessive debt will be incapable of offering a
viable solution to an economic crisis. Even worse, it is likely that any
proposed solution will make the crisis more severe.

Clearly, there’s a significant parallel between the
technological singularity, and the economic and financial black hole that has
been developing in the world. Will the two singularities occur simultaneously?
Or will one of them cause the other?

Takeover

Google’s autonomous cars have now logged thousands of miles
on American highways.In 2014, a vice-chairman
of General Motors stated that self-driving cars should “hit the road soon”
because they will be safer than vehicles driven by people. (10) So,
humans won’t drive anymore – they’ll be driven by artificial intelligence (AI).

Clearly Governments and business could follow much the same pattern
– using machine intelligence to go beyond human capabilities and eliminate human
fallibility. How far will this develop until AI has the ability to take over?

By 2020 over 6 billion people will own smart-phones, about
70% of the world’s population. In fact, total mobile subscriptions (including
Internet services) will actually number 9.2 billion by that time. Taking into
account Internet-of-things and M2M services, mobile broadband and even some
basic remaining feature phones, there will be 26 billion connected devices in
five years’ time. This is an indication of just how dominant these devices are
becoming with how people communicate with each other. (11)

Beyond just making phone calls, smartphones provide GPS
directions (few use map-books anymore), keep track of appointments and
contacts, take pictures, play music, mingle via social media, and look up
everything on Google. Through the installation of apps, the list of possible
smartphone uses multiplies by tens of thousands and keeps growing longer. (12)

22 comments:

1. Do you recognize technology acceleration in your own life? Does it excite you? Or does it make you uncomfortable?

Yes I recognize technology has changed my life, but at the level it is right now I still see it as a tool I still see it as a hammer but I recognize that it is becoming a CNC machine. That make me a little uncomfortable.

2. Where do you think technology is leading? Has it changed your own life?3. Do you use a desktop? Tablet? Smartphone? What are your major use

Yes to everything, all for fun, entertainment and recreation!

4. What do YOU think smartphones will do in 5, 10 or 20 years?

Paying will be by smartphone and most metal coins and notes with will be much reduced, only used by people who want to hide for one reason or another...

5. Will computers be smarter than humans? When?

They will know more and access it quicker but not sure what you define as smarter. In terms of invention, they are not smarter but in terms of definable tasks, they are already smarter than half the population.

6. Is your grandchild using smart gadgets today? How will he/she be using Technology in 20 years?

Yes, unless they embrace technology they will suffer economically.

7. Do you see a sudden Singularity arriving? Or will it come creeping?

Creeping

8. Could the Singularity be triggered via the expected world financial collapse?

I doubt it will have much effect. I can't see good or bad economics having any long term (10+ years) on the progress of the computer progress. The real scary part is if you make one iPhone smart, suddenly this is multiplied by 20,000,000. That is really terrifying.

1. Do you recognize technology acceleration in your own life? Yes Does it excite you? Or does it make you uncomfortable? Both

2. Where do you think technology is leading? Has it changed your own life?

By and large it is leading to making the necessities of life easier and safer. It is also attempting to make communication faster and better. I would argue that it is making it faster and worse. It is now far too simple to see only the views that correspond to your own. It is also drawing a barrier between communication of words and communication of emotion.

3. Do you use a desktop? Tablet? Smartphone? What are your major uses?

Yes and all uses. Tablet for the portability, but desktop for the easier keyboard style entry.

4. What do YOU think smartphones will do in 5, 10 or 20 years?

The phone portion of their use is now so minor that they should cease to be called smartphones. They are just another computing device in a different form factor.

5. Will computers be smarter than humans? When?

Maybe better at rapid crunching of big data and crowd sourcing, but never as wise. So perhaps wisdom will be buried by smart.

6. Is your grandchild using smart gadgets today? How will he/she be using Technology in 20 years?

I only hope it is not using him and her.

7. Do you see a sudden Singularity arriving? Or will it come creeping?

Your last comment, "It will be crushed slowly by its lack of humanity" - is a key point. The Singularity will have be a takeover, with "humanity" just one of the priorities. There are many stories (science-fiction) which relate how it will work, some indicating decidedly non-human, or even in-human, characteristics. Lots of room for imagination regarding what will indeed happen.

The Singularity. Such a simple, clean, nice name for something that may never exist.

The halls of humility are (or should be) littered with the failed corpses of fantastical predictions. So I'll add some of my own, no more (or less?) valid than Mr. Kurzweil's, at least in my singular mind.

If there is a major even coming, I think it will look more like a very broad based (maybe worldwide) revolution against the forces that the "Singularity" idea espouses. I clearly remember being told, as a young lad, of the coming 21 hour workweek and unlimited entertainment that we'd all be enjoying .. 'soon'. At the time I thought that'd be just swell. Now I recognize it as a slow torture of imposed idleness.

Google, Kurzweil's employer / accomplice already knows more about people's habits that is good for us. This just acknowledges that '1984' is happening - and it has largely already happened. Edward Snowden gave us a glimpse of some of the results of extreme power resting in a few manipulative hands. Faster connections and more data storage and analysis is not likely to bode well for Mr. and Mrs. average citizen, neither in the West or in the hitherto developing world. Engineered misinformation that drives power into the hands of the few is unavoidable. What could possible go wrong?!?

My version of the "Singularity" is one where technology, misused by the proverbial 1% (more like 0.001% of course), triggers enough of the 'inspected' people to throw off the yoke of being a lab rat, and an enlightened populace reverses the roles. French Revolution #2.

Ironically, the only thing that can save the masses is information - true information about the way power is used and abused. More "Panama Papers" but not just information on financial transactions - the world needs to know about the games that are being played by those who are trying to set up the ultimate ant farm. Once we're the ants, we won't even know who the ant masters are - they'll be living in their "Singularity" and the rest of us will be collecting scraps for the Queen.

I hope it's not too late. But I do see a lot of ants running around like they're on top of the world.

The key point about the Singularity is that it will "decide" on its own about what is good for humanity, and what is not. There are many science-fiction stories about Robotic intelligence takeover - deciding what is done based on logic versus human empathy and kindness.

I allow it when I feel it will solve a reasonable need that I cannot solve by any other actual way.

2. Where do you think technology is leading? Has it changed your own life?

No doubt , communications : mobile and messaging , socializing ; the fact that I can know from my relatives and friend no matter where they are is for me major advantage since I still remember and record what it meant for my family to contact relatives by expensive unreliable phone calls.

3. Do you use a desktop? Tablet? Smartphone? What are your major uses?

Maybe they will be able to solve health issues, control my food & water consumptions, predict potential problems . Find people in my surroundings that I may be compatible or share common interests....

5. Will computers be smarter than humans? When?

Maybe computers will create computers , this is what I can imagine as farest ; I cannot believe computers being smarter than humans ; I play chess with my computer and it wins 100 match for each one I win ; does it means it is smarter?

6. Is your grandchild using smart gadgets today? How will he/she be using Technology in 20 years?

I have no grandchild but I cannot answer this unless repeating answer 4.

7. Do you see a sudden Singularity arriving? Or will it come creeping?

No point on this.

8. Could the Singularity be triggered via the expected world financial collapse?9. Please share your own comments. Write a sentence or two. Or, a whole essay.

You must have reached the sacred level of doctor of philosophy because of your many awards and your display of brilliance in the technological world. Instead of asking me to answer your list of questions, I wish we readers could have your inputs. Nonetheless:

1. Do you recognize technology acceleration in your own life? Does it excite you? Or does it make you uncomfortable?

Frankly, I’m disgusted with the rapid and seemingly daily changes in technology. Now they’re talking about driverless carriages. Crazy! Sounds like a race between drunken horses. Some of these carriages claim speeds of up to forty miles per hour. Who’d want to go that fast? Consider the increased danger at that high speed. Excite me? Makes me so uncomfortable that I just want to hide out in the nearest saloon.

2. Where do you think technology is leading? Has it changed your own life?

Technology is heading over a cliff in a hand-basket. We don’t need more of these dangfangled motor carriages unless we need to decrease our populations. The question is not, Is anything sacred? but, Is anything that moves at forty mph safe? How could it be?

3. Do you use a desktop? Tablet? Smartphone? What are your major uses?

I work at my desk seven days a week. Tablet? Didn’t they go out with Nebucanezzar? My friend Alex Bell claims to have developed some gadget called a telephone, but I can’t imagine its use or functions. I’m happy with the speed and reliability of Mr. Morse’s code.

4. What do YOU think smartphones will do in 5, 10 or 20 years?

Well, they sure as hell won’t drive horseless carriages.

5. Will computers be smarter than humans? When?

I leave computers to science labs. How could a machine possibly get smarter than a human, even my brother Harold, who never got out of sixth grade?

6. Is your grandchild using smart gadgets today? How will he/she be using Technology in 20 years?

Thankfully, I have no grandchildren (that I know about). If I did, maybe he or she could invent a better buggy whip for my company, but not using that new material called fiberglass. Glass is brittle, and whips have to bend.

7. Do you see a sudden Singularity arriving? Or will it come creeping?

For centuries supposedly scientific souls like you have predicted the coming soon of a disastrous event that will wreck this world. Hasn’t happened, and it won’t. (Although, there’s a kid in New York by the name of Donald Trump, who, when he grows up, might bring it off.)

8. Could the Singularity be triggered via the expected world financial collapse?

Who is predicting a financial collapse? Stick with buggy whips and you’ll be safe and well off, ready to meet the 20th century.

Your quaint comments are published. Because of the questionable content, I had to confirm with our board-of-directors (which includes 11 smartphones, 2 tablets and one venerable laptop PC) that this was acceptable. They have reluctantly agreed to allow your weird and whimsical responses to be recorded, to allow review by future generations of intelligent beings.

Jim--often say of myself that I've been living at the intersection of technology and humanity for almost 70 years now. Collisions are fairly regular and often spectacular. I've thought about you questions. Here's my answer.

In my experience whenever we've been thinking about what might happen, it turns out, years later, that it had already happened. We were just starting to sense it.

Jim, I've been thinking about your question. Often say of myself that I've been living at the intersection of technology and humanity for almost 70 years now. Collisions are regular and sometimes spectacular.

I've developed a rule: Whenever we are thinking about what might happen, it turns out years later that it had already happened. We were just starting to sense it.

4. What do YOU think smartphones will do in 5, 10 or 20 years? >> Added capability, medical information data.

5. Will computers be smarter than humans? >>Absolutely not.

When? >> Never can be "smarter" than the exceptional human. Confusing fast addition with intelligence is wrong.

6. Is your grandchild using smart gadgets today? >> Of Course

How will he/she be using Technology in 20 years? >> Who knows? Once a slide rule was high tech.

7. Do you see a sudden Singularity arriving? >> No

Or will it come creeping? >> It is coming, the declaration will come from the totally confused media, not from the thinkers.

8. Could the Singularity be triggered via the expected world financial collapse? >> The "singularity" is a media thing, for the un-knowing, the financial mess is a product of government meddling and corruption, different things, probably not related.

9. Please share your own comments. Write a sentence or two.>> I do not fear the robots, I do not fear the programmers, but I greatly fear their management. It is very easy to write code which looks nice but behaves badly. No machine can do what it is not told to do.

Computers hold data, and they can compare, and calculate, they cannot imagine. A clever programmer can make it look like a computer is "smart" he cannot make it smart. From the very beginning of humans, a few precious and rare gifted persons have bit by bit discovered all that we know.

There is a huge intellectual distance between using a piece of wire like string to hold papers together and bending it into a paper clip. It will take a very clever programmer to create a program which can do that.

I seriously dislike a program which "adapts" to my recent use. I seriously dislike a store or a program telling me what to purchase.

1. Do you recognize technology acceleration in your own life? Yes Does it excite you? Yes Or does it make you uncomfortable? Yes

2. Where do you think technology is leading? To a rapidly changing way of life.

Has it changed your own life? Yes.

3. Do you use a desktop? No

Tablet? Yes

Smartphone? Yes

What are your major uses? My entire life, schedule, etc. are on my phone & tablet.

4. What do YOU think smartphones will do in 5, 10 or 20 years? I don't have enough imagination to provide a reasonable answer.

5. Will computers be smarter than humans? Yes.

When? Unknown at this time but with Deep Learning, the process has begun.

6. Is your grandchild using smart gadgets today? Yes

How will he/she be using Technology in 20 years? Yes. I don't have enough imagination to provide a reasonable answer.

7. Do you see a sudden Singularity arriving? Or will it come creeping? I think it will come slowly and most people will not recognize it. Once it's foundation is in multiple places, it will come quickly.

8. Could the Singularity be triggered via the expected world financial collapse? Don't know, don't think there is a connection between the two conditions.

9. Please share your own comments.

With the agricultural revolution change came about every century. With the first 3 Industrial Revolutions (1770-1840 [steam & mechanical], 1840-1940 ]electrical & electrification], 1940-1985 [Computers], change came about every 15 years. With the 4th Industrial Revolution (1985-Present [AI, Nanotechnology, Synthetic Biology, Meta Materials, 3D Printing, etc.]) change seems to be coming about every 9-12 months. By 2045, change may be coming every month.

I see the coming of robotics, automation & AI replacing existing workers(Foxconn's laying off 60,000 workers in China this past week) and withRobots now being used to build robots (CNN recent report) I anticipatethat the basic rules of how our society operates will change in asignificant way. I don't know the details of the changes but I do expectthey will be such as to alter present society in a major way.With IBM's Watson-like systems (ROSS for the legal world) I see presentdays 'white collar' professions being altered in the same way the steamshovels displaced labors with shovels.

"IF", you figure out how all of this will be resolved - please sharewith me.

I have no problems with intelligence, whether it be carbon-based orsilicon-based. It is how intelligence is applied that I'm concernedabout. The reason why singularity has the potential to become verysinister is because it is primarily being applied to defense purposes. If this continues, artificial intelligence will become a major a threatto humanity. You can see these trends when you look at the increasinguse of drones to conduct military warfare. Unfortunately, these trendsappear to be accelerating. Technology is De-personalizing warfare. Warfare is now the equivalent of playing a video game. Risks areminimized. You no longer have to get your hands bloody or see up-frontand personal the carnage you caused. The bad news is that it won't belong before our current enemies also have this technology. Once thatoccurs, we will curse the day when we started down this road.

With regards to the financial realms, I do see exponential trendsoccurring. They are mostly the result of Fed policies (QE, NIRP, NIRP,etc.) and the result of the exponential increase in money supply anddebt. Technology and the internet are having a role in theseexponential rises. Their main contribution is that they increase thespeed at which future events will occur. They will probably also proveto be our eventual salvation since they will encourage collaboration andsharing of ideas to solve the problems that we encounter in the future.

There has already been an exponential rise in the stock market, the bondmarket and in real estate. Higher highs might occur. However, itappears that the upward trends in these assets are running out of gasand momentum is slowing. Like a cannon ball that is shot straight up inthe air, once the upward momentum stalls its' decent is is not a gradualprocess! Computer selling will only accelerate the crash and push itinto the other direction more profoundly. New financial inventions suchas derivatives will cause the financial devastation to even be moredevastating. This will probably cause most of the major banks,insurance companies, non-financial companies, pension plans, brokeragehouses, federal governments, state governments and local governments togo bankrupt. Credit will freeze up and credit and debit transactionswill halt. When this occurs we could be going from a period similar tothe Resonance to a period resembling the Dark Ages. You can seegovernments around the world getting ready for this financial collapsewith their passage of bail in laws the trends towards eliminating cashtransactions. What is sad is that most people don't even have a clue asto what is about to occur. They just know that something is reallywrong and hope their choice for president will make everything betteragain.

What is really scary is that most of the worlds population live incities rather than in rural areas. If you live in places like SanDiego, you probably don't even have a yard to put a chicken coup or avegetable garden on. Starvation, unrest and revolution are likelyoutcomes. I would not doubt that the Pentagon war-rooms already havecontingency plans for this possibility.

How the above-mentioned financial events will affect singularity ofartificial intelligence is hard to say. Getting funding for any type ofresearch will probably become very difficult. Silicon Valley's goldenyears are numbered. In the future, survival and worrying aboutessentials will be people's most pressing problems.

In the past, major financial disruptions have often been followed bywars. If this occurs, and we could have another world war on ourhands. A number of people in the defense department, state departmentand the current administration are already saber rattling with regardsto Russia and China. If some of these people get their wish, we couldbe headed for a very dark age indeed. I hope our new batch ofpoliticians realize the risk. Unfortunately, the current candidates forPresident and many members of our Congress don't give me much hope.

Kurzweil’s singularity is a bit of a misnomer. People seem to forget that he’s using semi-log scales which can make adoption and performance trends look predictable and precise, when they’re not.

That said, assuming a convergence of events occurs, there are two ways of dealing with it. One of them, is that it will be mostly good. It is like describing the horseless carriage to someone in the mid-1700s. It seems like a good thing except for issues of fuel, pollution, and a lack of passable roads. The ideas don’t always scale up as nicely as we’d like to think.

The other way of looking at this convergence is dystopian. It will be abused. It will be used to facilitate wars and evil the sorts of which we have difficulty imagining right now.

That’s why adoption of this singularity will be uneven, and very stressful.

By the way, that’s exactly what happened during the last singularity. What’s that, you say? You don’t recognize it? It was World War II.

I predict this singularity will be based upon information and the collapse of centrally managed economic systems. The war of information will be run by virtual cyborgs, barely human entities, with brutal Darwinist ruthlessness. The average person would do well to keep their heads down and keep a low profile. Scavenging technologies for small entities and keeping a low profile is actually beneficial while the big entities fight things out. There will be engineered biological agents and threats that will wipe out entire populations. There will be ways of recording entities so that even biological death won’t kill a person. Data destruction will. There will be battles on many levels across international boundaries.

And the battle ground will start on a medium that was originally designed to be resilient enough to avoid war: The Internet.

Wow ! I am very impressed and motivate by your realistic view of the Singularity.

You have brought up some very realistic scenarios about how the new exponential changes will affect humanity. Present-day humanity struggles with local petty politics, seemingly unable to cope with the real, serious world problems: poverty; deteriorating environment; narrow, sectarian wars which destroy society through small, local, very effective, religious terrorism. Future wars will clearly be cyber-based, and remote-control drone based. And that perhaps will be the "Singularity" of World War 3 - which will certainly be an "inflection point" in human history.

Yes, of course. When I was in my 20s we struggled to avoid going into a second 4K core memory stack (yes, 4,000 bytes!), and now we’re talking petabytes and zettabytes – all in my lifetime – and it ain’t even over yet!

Does it excite you? Or does it make you uncomfortable?

Both exciting and increasingly disconcerting – especially based on this article!

2. Where do you think technology is leading? Has it changed your own life?

Technology has irreversibly changed EVERYONE’S life in both good ways and bad ways. I think the breakdown in human-to-human communication is not a good thing, but the exponential increase in communications of all types is a monumentally good thing. IMO, it is communications – and the corresponding enlightenment (education, if you prefer) – is the #1 factor that tears down barriers, whether cultural, financial, political, etc., and brings humanity closer together.

3. Do you use a desktop? No. Tablet? Yes. Smartphone? Yes.

What are your major uses? Almost every aspect of my daily life, in one way or another!

4. What do YOU think smartphones will do in 5, 10 or 20 years?

It’s hard to imagine how they could become more feature-rich and more indispensable – but I’m sure they will! I’m guessing a lot more physiological and maybe even psychological monitoring and analysis apps.

5. Will computers be smarter than humans? When?

I think they probably already are as far as pure ‘smarts’ goes. Emotion and the ability to reason are the last frontiers, but those are psychological boundaries – not intellectual or intelligence boundaries.

6. Is your grandchild using smart gadgets today? How will he/she be using in 20 years?

N/A

7. Do you see a sudden Singularity arriving? Or will it come creeping?

Probably sudden and not a planned or projected point in time. I think we’ll just wake up one morning, look around, and say Holy Sh#t – it’s here!!

8. Could the Singularity be triggered via the expected world financial collapse?

I don’t ‘expect’ a “world financial collapse” so I have no answer for this…

Let me also offer a YouTube video link that provides a glimpse into what the future of automotive manufacturing looks like... except that it isn't really the future -- it's NOW!http://www.youtube.com/embed/8_lfxPI5ObM?rel=0

1. Do you recognize technology acceleration in your own life?Does it excite you? Or does it make you uncomfortable?

Technology acceleration excites me. Having said that, proper regulations and ethical constrains must be established with a sense of urgency. We must insure that these explosive advancements are deployed with the best interests of mankind guaranteed.

2. Where do you think technology is leading? Has it changed your own life?

As they struggle to find their career path, the question I ask my grandchildren is this: What professions can/will never be replaced or diminished by AI and/or smart robots? Example, consider Watson: For a set of medical symptoms, Watson can choose in milliseconds, the medical procedure that will result in the best outcome for the patient based on a cloud of millions of procedures coupled with the quality of their actual outcomes. Now connect Watson to the de Vinci surgical robot. It would be able to execute surgical procedures more precisely than the best human surgical experts. It would be able to handle exceptions and emergencies faster and better than any human. Surgical procedures would be provided from a cloud of instructions that, with content additions and deep learning technology, would grow and become more comprehensive and effective over time. This is an example of where my hypothetical machine could replace a specialized skill requiring exceptional education and experience.

With CRSPR/Cas9 we are now able to edit genes. As we discover the purpose and function of each gene, we will be able to cure genic disorders that have plagued us since the birth of mankind. At some point, we will be able to modify genic defects before birth. They have modified a gene in the common table mushroom resulting in a mushroom that does not turn brown and slimy over time. The Chinese have modified the genic properties of a human embryo. If the embryo was allowed to grow full term, to an adult human, the modified properties would be propagated through subsequent child births. This is scary! This, again, raises the urgent need for regulation and ethical oversight. These technologies will be reading our MRIs, performing surgeries requiring micron level accuracies, performing gene editing to cure genic disorders and child birth disabilities, driving our cars and controlling all of our modes of public transportation including flying our planes.The Northrop Grumman X-47B drone (UCAV) is capable of semi-autonomous control. It can diagnose on-board failures and take mitigating actions. It can land on an aircraft carrier without human intervention!

3. Do you use a desktop? Tablet? Smartphone? What are your major uses?

I use a desktop computer, a laptop computer, an iPad and a Galaxy Note4 phone. I use them for communications through Voice, Email and text messaging. I maintain an in house server that networks all my LAN enabled devices within the house. This includes my Nest thermostat, pool equipment, home automation, Denon entertainment center, several Wi-Fi connected printers, Desktop and Laptop computers, my mobiledevices and a router that connects to cable based Internet through a cable MODEM.

I use the Microsoft Office products for word processing and spreadsheet work and use GOOGLE extensively for all manner of research. I often use voice input with my iPad and Samsung Galaxy phone. I use RocSim on a Laptop for hobby rocketry modeling.

Short term, smartphones will continue to integrate apps for healthy lifestyle and medical monitoring. Improved processing power and voice recognition will allow for ease of information access. Video resolution and sound quality will obviously improve over time and the compute power will continue to expand with Moore’s law.

Longer term, I would hope that battery life will no longer be a smartphone constraint. Small fuel cells might provide lifetime power that exceeds the smartphones MTBF. You will be purchasing a phone that no longer needs recharging and will last until something else fails. This will apply to other mobile devices like the iPad and laptop computers.

Long term, I could imagine facilities that would allow forelectro-physical connection to the cloud world. Our human biological system employs an electro-chemical communication network that will be integrated with the physical world; maybe through a surgical procedure. This will allow our cognitive processes to be augmented with outside cloud access and computational services in a client-server type connection. We could live in a world that markets future Watson level intelligence to human subscribers. No I’m not smoking dope!

5. Will computers be smarter than humans? When?

Yes and soon. I remember when 1.2 micron CMOS was bleeding edge technology in the mid-80s. Smaller geometries were constrained by visible light spectrum and photo lithography technology. With advances in process and lithography technology, we can now yield Nano-meter devices that are faster, smaller and consume less power. The next major step will be in architecture. Progress on device technology has been amazing, however we are still constrained by the Von Neumann architecture. As we move to poly-state, neural network architectures that mimic the human brain, we will be capable of processing images and audio in real-time, allowing our machines to come closer to human capabilities. It’s interesting to note that with our fastest devices, we are currently unable to replicate the processing of a common house fly’s brain. The house fly can navigate over relatively long distance flying up to 4.5 MPH, land on a pin head and react to a fly swatter in milliseconds. The common honey bee is even more amazing able to navigate over 4 miles and weighing only a few hundred milligrams. I believe computers will be able to function at human levels within two decades.

6. Is your grandchild using smart gadgets today? How will he/she be using Technology in 20 years?

My granddaughter is a chronic user of iPads and smartphones. I bought her a PC when she was very young. And as I hoped, she became very comfortable with the technology. I would be more concerned about her employment long term. We obsess about companies that use off shorelabor, displacing our domestic manufacturing with the resulting loos of jobs. We aren’t paying sufficient attention to labor displacement from automation. When advance technologies start making significant inroads into white collar jobs, it may be too late. He who owns the machines, owns the world. The pervasive deployment of future technology that replaces large swaths of professional jobs will require a fundamental rethinking of our labor markets and how people are employed andcompensated.

7. Do you see a sudden Singularity arriving? Or will it come creeping?

From my limited understanding of the Singularity, I believe it is already appearing in subtle forms. We are seeing amazing progress in deep learning technology’s ability to perform image recognition at the level of a human infant. Machines are already able to recursively improve themselves. We have robots that have the ability to maintain and repair themselves. 3D printers are even able to produce replacement parts. Note: I just purchased Kurzweil’s book; “The Singularity is Near.” Thanks for the suggestion.

8. Could the Singularity be triggered via the expected world financial collapse?

Excellent question! I am too ignorant regarding economic dynamics. However, I am concerned that the opposite might occur: Namely, the singularity, without regulation and ethical controls, will cause a global financial collapse. The engine of our prosperity and growth is the middle class consumer. The production/consumption balance will be upended when the purchasing power of our middle class is destroyed. When their jobs are taken over by machines that are smarter, faster andcheaper. Do we end up having the capacity to efficiently buildinventory without a gainfully employed population to consume.

We are living in an exciting time. Advanced technologies are having a more profound impact on our lives than ever before. The pace is breathtaking. We need to take appropriate measures to ensure our country and way of life will continue to grow and prosper and that we use these marvelous inventions to make everyone’s lives better.